


a real hero

by blueshirts



Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Alternate Universe, Android AU, Canon-Typical Violence, Cybernetics, Friends to Lovers, M/M, OC, Slow Build, clint barton - Freeform
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-08-13
Updated: 2015-08-17
Packaged: 2018-04-14 12:42:06
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 10,896
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4565070
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/blueshirts/pseuds/blueshirts
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Bucky is a robot created by Tony Stark for a singular purpose: befriend Steven Grant Rogers, alias Captain America. It doesn't take long for Bucky to find out that nothing in the human world is as it first appears, and that staying on-mission is nearly impossible when your mission is Steve Rogers.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

It didn’t take long for Bucky to learn that true darkness couldn’t be found in the twenty first century. Ever since he awoke, he’d been inundated with light. Even at night, he couldn’t escape it. He looked up, and couldn’t see the stars he knew to be there. Light pollution, Stark had called it. Bucky didn’t know if that was a fair term. He did know that the lights of neon signs and streetlamps washed the city streets in all the colors the human field of vision could distinguish.

Sometime, he thinks, he’d like to tell the Captain about all the colors humans couldn’t see. He’d start with ultraviolet. It’d be easiest to explain. He wouldn’t mention how seeing the higher frequency wavelengths made his circuitry thrum, how it made it easier to pretend he was feeling something. Things like that might make the Captain uncomfortable. He’d talk about bowling alleys, instead.

Having decided this, Bucky spun the throttle on his borrowed cycle, precisely calculated to attain the exact amount of thrust for going five miles above the imposed speed limit. He needed to hurry if he was going to get to Stark’s before sunrise.

 

Ms. Potts (he’d never call her Pepper, despite her insistence) told Bucky to ‘head right on in’ to Stark’s workshop. Bucky followed the non-command without question.

Stark was looking at schematics, gesticulating in the wild manner Bucky was quickly learning to be his norm. As soon as he saw Bucky enter, he told the holotable to shut off, and the schematics disappeared. The door clicked behind Bucky, but he dared not go further unless commanded.

“You’re here! Fantastic!” And it sounded as if Stark truly meant it, if the tambre of his voice and his near-manic facial expression were anything to go by.

Bucky didn’t respond. In his (admittedly brief) experience, Stark did not need outside help to keep a conversation going. Sure enough, it was only seconds later when he resumed speaking without provocation.

“Big day tomorrow,” he flitted around Bucky, possibly confirming Bucky had not been harmed in his short foray out into the real world. Satisfied, he walked over to the larger of his worktables, needlessly beckoning Bucky to follow.

“Sit up on here,” Stark patted the table, and Bucky did as he was told, “Take off your jacket.”

Bucky gave no visible reaction to Stark’s sudden, inexplicable smile and shed his jacket. Stark chuckled.

“Why are you amused?” Bucky asked. He’d never dwell on it, but the feel of his own vocalizations in his throat and on his lips felt reassuring. He was here. He was alive, for lack of a more fitting word.

Stark shook his head, “Pal, all I can say is that you and Cap are gonna get on swimmingly.”

Stark turned and began rifling through his toolbox. He plucked out a delicate screwdriver with a quiet ‘A-ha!’ and returned to Bucky’s side.

“Will we?” Bucky asked faintly. He knew it was his purpose, why he was built. He had to get along with the Captain. Stark’s information was perhaps vital to the success of this mission.

Stark was frowning, biting his lip as he tinkered with the exposed circuitry of Bucky’s left arm. He was so involved in the process the words reached his lips before he had time to filter them. “Don’t know, really. Hope so.”

“Me too,” Bucky said, automatically. He couldn’t filter his words for a different reason: namely, not enough know how.

Stark laughed, his hand stilling.

“You’re already learning to hope? If I’d known I was this good at AIs, I would’ve made more.”

Bucky was unsure why he’d said he was hopeful. He didn’t feel hope. He only felt that it was necessary that the Captain would let him get closer, and that was what compelled him to speak.

Stark twisted the delicate tool expertly, and the final panel fell into place with a hiss.

“Done! Time to get some skin on ya.”

Stark removed himself from Bucky’s side, and he was able to examine his arm in peace. He wouldn’t say he admired the work, but he appreciated the skill and finesse it must have taken to create it. Him.

“Do you have any preferences?” Stark called, his voice muffled by the distance. He’d gone into a sideroom. Bucky leapt off the worktable, and made his way over.

The room appeared to be a closet. A well-lit closet, and a large one at that. It was filled with chrome dressers and glass storage spaces, with mirrors interspersed throughout.

“You know that I have no preferences,” Bucky said, and was not perturbed when Stark laughed. Stark’s amusement wasn’t essential to his mission, but it might not hurt.

“I hadn’t even finished what I was saying…,” Stark trailed off, then looked at Bucky with abject fondness. Bucky felt nothing, but he bowed his head in deference to Stark anyways, “Christ, kid. He’s gonna love you.”

He turned back to an opened drawer. Instead of clothes, the entire width of the drawer was occupied with a machine built for some unknown purpose. Stark tapped at an interface in the corner, and Bucky looked on. For some reason, Stark’s last statement had provoked a reaction within him. He wondered if one of his regulators was glitching.

“Cap had a girl, you know,” Stark’s voice was softer than Bucky had ever heard it, though again, that wasn’t saying much.

“I did not know.”

“You might wanna start using contractions, kid. Propriety only works when you’ve got an accent.”

Bucky nodded, head ratcheting up and down at the unpracticed motion.

“Anyways. Cap’s girl from the ‘40s. She had brown hair. Wanna go brown?”

After a moment of processing, Bucky assented. It couldn’t hurt the mission.

Stark grinned at Bucky.

“Brunet it is. You’ve already got the rapier sharp wit down pat.”

“Sure I do.” Bucky made sure to make his voice sound skeptical, if only to be rewarded with the surprised expression in his creator’s face.

 

“Why does my hair have to be that long? Surely that would be impractical.”

“Would you prefer having to gel your hair back every day?”

“....”

“That’s what I thought.”

 

“I refuse to let you make my lips that color.”

“Aw, c’mon. Live a little.”

“I’ll remind you that the Captain doesn’t need to find me attractive for the mission.”

“Ugh, fine. Spoilsport.”

 

“They’re still too heavily saturated, Mr. Stark.”

“Oh my God, call me Tony. Please. You’re gonna give me a heart attack, kid.”

 

“Done,” Stark sounded exhausted, but pleased. Bucky liked to think he was getting better at ascertaining feelings. It helped that Stark was such emotive person. He didn’t know how well he’d fare with the Captain.

“Go on, look at yourself. You know you want to,” Stark may have waggled his eyebrows in an annoying manner, but his tone was light and encouraging. Bucky acquiesced. He faced one of the many mirrors.

He was… unshaven. His fingers went to his jaw, the new sensory pads picking up the sharp burn of stubble. He drew away. His hair was long and unkempt. His chest, however, was bare. Stark had waved a hand at that, saying that only the face was important. It wasn’t like the Captain would be seeing anywhere else. Bucky’s face, though. It seemed to have too many details. There were bags under his eyes. He prodded at them ineffectually.

“I look homeless,” he said, eventually.

“Nah,” Stark handed him a pile of clothes, “You look human.”


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Bucky meets his mission.

Bucky examined the clothes he’d been given while Stark got out his phone and started tapping away at it. Dark denim trousers, gray briefs, gray t shirt. He noted that Stark had given him socks, but no shoes. Perhaps it was all part of the effort to make him softer, more human.

He took his sweet time getting dressed. He revelled in the different sensations on his skin. The cotton of his underwear and his shirt, soft. The abrasive comfort of the jeans, which were warm and heavy and which clung to his thighs in a way that both thrilled him and left him feeling exposed. Logically, he knew his iron alloy skeleton was completely covered, that he’d pass as human in all eyes but Stark’s (and perhaps Ms. Pott’s), but still. The tight jeans were almost too much.

He wondered if it’d make a difference. If the Captain would decide Bucky was too robot if he wore sweatpants like Stark’s. He doubted that would be the case. From all he’s been told, the Captain wouldn’t give a damn.

Finished with the task given, Bucky stood in stolid silence as Stark continued tapping on his phone. Maybe he was writing a novel. More likely, he was planning out his next mad scientist idea.

Finally, Stark finished. He looked up, and jolted a little, like he’d forgotten Bucky was there.

“Kid, c’mon!” he sounded pained, “don’t just stare at me like that. It’s creepy.”

Bucky levelled him with a look-- rendered all the more effective by its unchanging blankness. Stark shifted guiltily, eyes snapping quickly down to his phone and back up.

“I’m still in the process of getting Cap to come over. He doesn’t like the idea of gifts not given on birthdays or Christmas, apparently.”

Bucky nodded, head ratcheting up and down. The action was met with a cringe.

“Don’t act so stiff, either.”

Bucky rolled his eyes. He couldn’t recall where he’d seen the gesture before-- perhaps from Ms. Potts in one of his earlier days in Tony’s workshop-- but he knew that the moment definitely warranted an eye roll.

“You’re aware I’m made of metal, right?”

Stark clapped his hands together. He didn’t seem perturbed at all. In fact, he looked downright gleeful.

“Sarcasm! You already have a sense of irony. My God, sometimes my brilliance surprises even me. “

Bucky resisted the urge to roll his eyes again, as he didn’t think it would be wise to send his creator into further fits of hysteria.

Stark’s phone beeped, and if possible, when he looked back up from it this time, he had an even bigger smile on his face.

“Kid, it’s your time to shine. Cap’s coming over. I had to bribe him with homemade cookies, but that’s neither here nor there,” Stark pulled a face, and gave Bucky an assessing look, “I hope I programmed cooking skills into you, because Pepper and I probably shouldn’t even go near an oven so soon after last week’s fiasco.”

Bucky wasn’t even going to ask.

 

They emerged from Stark’s workroom, and their appearance was met with Ms. Potts’ appreciative whistle. She joined them on their walk to the kitchen, and only just concealed her apparent interest in Bucky’s new exterior.

“He looks great, Tony.”

“Oh, c’mon. You never doubted me,” Stark sounded so self-assured. He clapped Bucky on the shoulder, then winced when the thin layer of skin proved to be an ineffective insulator. Bucky’s metal inner workings must’ve hurt to hit.

“I knew you’d be able to program him,” Ms. Potts’ tone was indulgent, yet fond, “I just had no idea the skin would look so, well, realistic.”

“Hey, 3D printing has come a long way, and I always perfect others’ inventions anyways.”

 

They settled around the large kitchen island, Stark resting his hip on the counter, Ms. Potts gracefully poised atop a stool, and Bucky standing in a corner. Stark gave him a funny look, and he realized his position might be construed as ‘awkward’. Bucky dropped his shoulders, adjusted his posture to something more human, and followed Stark’s lead by resting against a wall.

He quirked an eyebrow when the repositioning was complete, and Stark nodded his approval. Bucky had made himself satisfactorily casual.

Stark turned from Bucky to look at Ms. Potts, “Do we even have enough food for Cap? That guy’s appetite is unreal.”

“You finally got him to agree to come over, then?” Again, there was that warmness in her voice, the one that leaked through onto her face in the form of upturned corners of the mouth and pleasantly crinkled outer corners of eyes. Bucky noted these indicators of pleasure, filed them away for later reference. He wondered if Stark could tell the depth of Ms. Potts feelings for him as easily as Bucky could, then put a stop to that train of thought. Such thoughts were unproductive and a distraction from the mission.

He shifted his alignment again, disregarding the false veneer of humanity.

“When is the Captain arriving?”

Stark hummed, almost inaudibly. He had opened the refrigerator and was peering through it.

“Probably a quarter hour or so.”

If Bucky weren’t aware that all his systems were functioning perfectly, he would be tempted to think his central processing unit had glitched, the way everything seemed to judder just then.

“Repeat,” he requested.

Stark looked over his shoulder at Bucky. He cocked his head, and his trademark smile went softer.

“Cap’s gonna be here in fifteen. You nervous?”

Bucky paused to ponder the ridiculousness of that.

“You know that I’m not.”

Ms. Potts laughed, a sound rendered soft and inoffensive by the hand she quickly brought up to cover her mouth. Bucky sent her a look all the same. He didn’t understand how she could be amused at a time like this.

He looked back to Stark.

“Are you sure I’m ready, though?”

Stark only shrugged. He closed the refrigerator and moved onto the pantry.

“As ready as you’ll ever be. Hey, Pepper, does Cap have a favorite flavor of ramen?”

“How should I know?”

Bucky bristled, “You’re not going to give the Captain ramen.”

“Agreed,” Ms. Potts piped up, then uncrossed her legs elegantly and stood to join Stark at the pantry.

Within moments, she’d located and removed a sack of flour, sugar, a cardboard cylinder of salt, a bag of chocolate chips-- all requisite components of cookies. Once she’d lined them up on the island, she fixed her gaze on Bucky.

“Tony said you’d be able to cook…” she began, then trailed off. Bucky hesitated, then nodded. He supposed he could learn, in hopes of endearing himself to the Captain.

“Great!” Ms. Potts exclaimed. With one last grateful smile, she exited the kitchen. Apparently she trusted him enough to give him free rein there. But then again, why wouldn’t she? He was Stark’s AI, he’d never intentionally do something contrary to his programming.

Stark continued to rummage around in the pantry while Bucky located a computer interface embedded in the kitchen counter. Stark had considered implanting a direct link to the Internet in Bucky’s mind, but had decided against it for the time being-- his reasoning being that Bucky should have to ‘stick to googling stuff on his phone, like the rest of us’.

Bucky had found an acceptable recipe when Stark tossed a bundle of something at him. Without looking up or acknowledging it in anyway other than twitching a single arm, Bucky caught it.

“What’s this?”

“It’s an apron. You wear it so your clothes don’t get messy.”

“I know that,” Bucky said, gruffly. Without the knowledge that he was a robot, an observer might have termed it ‘snappish’. Still, although he’d been referring to the appearance of the apron-- pink and frilly-- Stark’s remark reminded him that he shouldn’t care. Didn’t care. Nevertheless, Bucky ignored the apron-- he didn’t mind a little flour getting onto his person-- and got baking.

 

It took more than fifteen minutes for the Captain to show. In fact, according to Bucky’s internal chronometer, the Captain arrived no less than thirty two minutes after Stark had said he would. Bucky was patiently waiting in front of the oven when the electronic doorbell chimed, alerting all to the Captain’s arrival.

Bucky froze. He hadn’t been moving before, but this was paralysis in a far colder sense. He felt like someone had poured coolant into his system. The feeling didn’t go away. Rather, as he heard a deep and foreign voice from the entry way, he felt it worsen. Bucky was sorely tempted to stay right there, in front of the oven, for as long as it took for his systems to feel normal, but he knew that would be detrimental to his mission.

He pushed himself off the counter he’d been resting on, and walked out into the entryway.

A man in casual attire -- the Captain, probably-- was standing with his hands splayed on his hips. He had his back to Bucky and, from the vantage point, Bucky could take a quick moment to observe him. He appeared stiff, perhaps even unhappy. From the looks on Ms. Potts’ and Stark’s faces (mild panic for Ms. Potts, winningly smug smile for Stark), the Captain’s discomfort was due to something Stark had said. Bucky looked quickly from the Captain to Stark. He knew his mission. He plastered what he hoped to be a charming lopsided grin on his face and strode up, settling himself between the Captain and Ms. Potts.

“Hope I’m not interrupting anything important,” he said, smoothly, and squared off to face the Captain, “Hey, I’m Bucky.”

He extended a hand in greeting, and took the brief moment before the Captain accepted it as another opportunity to observe. The Captain was clearly out of sorts, stuck between continuing his anger at Stark and playing nice for the newcomer. In the end, he took Bucky’s hand firmly, and deciding to play nice.

“Hey Bucky. I’m Steve.”

“I know,” Bucky let his grin widen, flashing his brand new pearly whites. Apparently, that was the wrong thing to say. Steve dropped his hand and dropped most of the kind pretense with it.

“Right,” Steve gave him one last inscrutable look before turning his gaze to Stark, “Alright, Tony. I’m here. It took a week of you annoying me half to death, but I’m here. What was it you wanted to show me?”

Unlike the smiles from moments before, the minute frown Bucky’s mouth contorted into was completely genuine. The Captain had dismissed him so readily, without even a second thought. Bucky had the sudden, inexplicable, irrational desire to prove to the Captain that he was worth more than a moment’s consideration.

Stark’s eyes went wide. His head went left to right, from Bucky to Steve and back again. His plan clearly wasn’t working out how he’d wanted it to. He pointed a finger at Steve like he was going to tell him off or something, opened his mouth, then clamped it shut, thinking better of the whole thing. Steve huffed impatiently, and his mouth relaxed as he prepared to speak. Then, mercifully, the oven dinged.

“I gotta go,” Bucky mumbled, then set off towards the kitchen without waiting for an acknowledgement.

“Yay! Cookies!” Ms. Potts said, her voice high and tight.

“Uh, yes. Cookie time,” Tony’s voice, from the entryway, was faint.

Bucky paid it no mind. He was going to focus on the cookies first, then his potentially-in-peril mission. He opened the oven, and made to grab the pans before Ms. Potts’ strangled yelp stopped him short.

“No, Bucky! Use an oven mitt!”

Bucky paused, before he remembered that he had skin now, and that the delicate sensors on the tips of his fingers might not appreciate temperatures upwards of three hundred and fifty degrees.

“Oh. Thanks, Ms. Potts.”

She pressed a pair of mitts into his hands, “For the millionth time, call me Pepper.”

Bucky quickly slipped the mitts on and removed the cookies, one tray in each hand. He nudged the oven door shut again with his sock-clad foot (careful to only touch the exterior of the door, of course). As he was executing this move, he overheard the Captain’s incredulous voice, coming from the doorway this time.

“Where the fuck did you find this guy?”

A few things happened in quick succession after that. First, Bucky dropped the trays of cookies on a counter hard and shed the mitts to curl his hands into fists. Simultaneously, Stark gasped an aghast “Language!”.

Then, things quickly devolved.

Ms. Potts, clearly seeing Bucky’s shift in mood, tried to inject some levity into the situation.

“Oh, he just showed up one day. You know how Tony is with strays,” she laughed, too pitched for it to be natural.

“She’s joking. I made him,” Stark looked to be nearly bursting with pride. Bucky, belatedly feeling the half moon cuts his fingernails were making in the palm of his hand, bit back a gasp of pain and carefully uncurled his fingers.

The Captain’s brow knitted itself. He seemed to think for a moment, then burst into a peal of laughter. Bucky’s desire to hit him did not lessen.

“You made him?” the Captain managed to say, between bouts of hearty laughter, “God, your sense of humor is weird.”

In fact, Bucky wanted to do more than hit him. He crossed the length of the kitchen in a couple strides, stopping only a few feet from the Captain.

“Stark’s not joking,” he growled, the low tambre of his own voice both exciting and strengthening him, “he’s a capable scientist and an unparalleled biotechnician.”

Stark’s look of pride increased by a magnitude or two. The Captain, on the other hand, stopped laughing completely. His mirth was replaced with confusion, mingled with doubt.

“Okay, what the fuck is with this guy?” he muttered, more to himself than anyone else. The doubt apparent on his face was growing.

Bucky nearly growled again. For all his efforts to become human, he seemed to have surpassed them all in emotionality, veering straight into animalistic territory. And then there was Stark’s hand on his shoulder-- a soft touch, hesitant, but grounding nonetheless.

“Uh. ‘This guy’ is my first attempt at making an android. Bucky, behave yourself.”

And that was all it took to bring Bucky back to full control of himself, the command more effective than a full system reboot. He ducked his head in an approximation of shame, and muttered an apology (directed at Stark, of course).

“You’re shitting me,” said the Captain.

“I’m not. He’s a fully functional android. It’s kind of a twist on my usual thing-- man on the outside, machine on the inside, instead of, well, the opposite. It’s really cool.”

“I don’t doubt it,” though it sounded like doubting was all the Captain was doing, “I only meant… God, Tony. You’re probably the first human to do this, and you named it Bucky. I don’t even wanna know what kind of shoe-horned acronym you used to justify that.”

Bucky bristled for some unknown reason. The Captain was ignoring him, again. Even when he spoke about him, he ignored him. Stark had the decency to look offended, even if it wasn’t, as it turned out, for the same reason as Bucky.

“Hey! It’s not an acronym. He’s named after my childhood hero.”

“And who’s that? What kind of hero is named Bucky?”

“Bucky Bears,” to his credit, Stark didn’t sound the least bit ashamed.

“You named it after a stuffed animal?” and, to his credit, the Captain sounded more amused than incredulous. Bucky wasn’t interested in giving the Captain credit for anything, though. Not when he insisted upon not meeting Bucky’s eyes. Perhaps he feared he’d look too close, somehow see behind the flawless implants into the mechanisms at work just beneath the veneer. Bucky set his jaw and levelled the Captain with a look.

“You wanna call me it one more time, Cap?”

The Captain jolted out of his predilection and met Bucky’s unrelenting gaze with something akin to guilt before he schooled his expression into something decidedly less soft. His eyes flicked down, then back up, quickly. He was looking for a crack in Bucky’s human exterior, for some hint of the machinations within him, but from the divot that appeared between his brows, he had no such success.

On his track upwards, his eyes finally met with Bucky’s. He paused, for a moment too brief for anyone other than the two of them to note, then looked to Stark. A muscle in his jaw twitched.

“I’m guessing Bucky’s the thing you wanted to show me.”

Bucky’s CPU, faster than light, might as well have been built in the seventies for all the good it did him. It seemed apart from him, wanting to dwell on the color of the Captain’s eyes-- how blue they were, even in the harsh light of Stark’s kitchen. Bucky recalled a memory from no more than an hour ago-- his face, in front of a mirror. Seeing himself for the first time. His eyes, he knew, weren’t that blue. They paled in comparison to the Captain’s.

“. . .I mean, he’s already made and everything. You wouldn’t want to put to waste all the effort and labor and just totally mind boggling amounts of money that went into BuckyBot, would you?”

Bucky seemed to have missed an integral part of the conversation. The Captain’s blue eyes were blazing, and Stark, with all his bustle and bravado, appeared to be attempting to shrink into the stucco wall behind him.

The Captain turned to Bucky, addressing him directly for the first time.

“State the purpose of your creation.”

Bucky clasped his hands at the small of his back.

“My mission, as it has been outlined in my programming, is to befriend one Steven Grant Rogers, alias Captain America.”

For a heartbeat (the approximate duration of a heartbeat, mind you. Bucky hadn’t a heart to tell time by.), the Captain did nothing. He reacted in no discernible way. And then, he laughed. Bucky noted that, when he wasn’t laughing at someone (Bucky), the sound of the Captain’s mirth could be pleasant.

“Am I really that much of a loser? That I have to have my friends custom made, ‘cause no one else can stand me.”

It took a moment for Bucky to tell, but the Captain appeared to be joking. Bucky quirked the corners of his lips upward, and it almost felt natural.

“That’s not why I-- ugh,” Stark scrubbed his face with a hand. The Captain silenced any other protestations on Stark’s part with a testy look.

“I’m leaving now,” he paused, then added quite deliberately, “without your weird present.”

True to his word, the Captain left soon after, but not before grabbing a few of the cookies Bucky had baked. After the door clicked shut behind him, Stark collapsed onto a couch. Ms. Potts, who had sagely stayed silent throughout nearly the entire kitchen ordeal, primly situated herself beside him.

“That could have gone better,” Stark said.

Bucky was hesitant to speak.

“Does this mean the mission is terminated?” he asked, finally. If that was the case, he could only guess what would happen to him.

“What? No. We’re just gonna have to try harder.”


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In short, Bucky finds out his whole life is a lie. But then again, he never really was alive to begin with.

The second time Bucky laid eyes on the Captain was through the scope of a sniper rifle. Stark had asked him to tag along on a routine alien-ass kicking, thoroughly convinced it was the only way the Captain and Bucky could meet up again under the Captain’s current tactic of “avoid and conquer”. Though unwilling to let millions of dollars go, guns blazing, directly into the fray, Stark had assented when Bucky asked if he could lend a hand from afar.

So there Bucky was, using his innate programming to protect Stark’s teammates the best way he knew how-- putting bullet holes through the skulls of their attackers -- big, ugly, reptilian aliens. From his vantage point atop a an apartment building, he was surprised to find it took him as long as it did to spot the Captain. Once he saw him, it was hard to look away. Although the Captain was dressed in vibrant colors, that wasn’t what made the sight of him so captivating. It was the way he fought. Relentless, daring, a curious paradox of calculated moves and instantaneous reactions. He treated his shield like an extension of himself. It went wherever he wanted it to go. He controlled it as easily and truly as one controlled their own extremities. He dipped and ducked and dodged and Bucky could see all at once how the legends about the Captain motivating entire regiments to fight could be true.

As he looked on in a robot’s closest approximation of awe, Bucky began to realize something else. The Captain was reckless, daring beyond his due. He took risks he shouldn’t have. He made split second decisions that put him in avoidable peril. Once, Bucky had to intervene, finger curling around the trigger of his gun, resulting in a minor implosion of reptile brains and yellow-orange alien blood from the adversary that had nearly caught and killed the Captain. After Bucky’s intervention, the Captain had snapped his gaze to Bucky’s hideout, eyes squinting. Although Bucky knew he was too far away for even an enhanced human like the Captain to see, he felt a brief moment of trepidation. It only ended after the Captain re-entered the battle, having decided that the originator of the bullet was more a friend than foe.

His fighting style only grew more needlessly reckless over the course of the fight with the aliens. That the Captain could be so focused on the wellbeing of all the faceless masses he fought for but have so little regard for his own safety baffled Bucky. It wakened a sick feeling within him. His systems were off, and they would not reach optimal functioning until Bucky went to the source of his discomfit. He had to speak with Stark. He had a notion that Stark had not been upfront about the reason behind Bucky’s creation.

-+-

“You lied to me.”

The tools in Stark’s hand clattered to the ground as he jolted in surprise. He hadn’t noticed Bucky let himself into the workshop, it seemed. Stark let out a string of choice expletives. He rounded on Bucky, but Bucky cut him off with a wave of his hand before he could launch into his planned tirade against Bucky’s sneakiness.

“You lied,” Bucky’s voice wavered minutely as he spoke, the stress of realizing the truth taking its toll on his systems, “my mission isn’t to befriend the Captain.”

Stark inhaled. He had an expression on his face that would not look out of place on an animal caught in a trap. Bucky belatedly wondered if he’d approached this the wrong way, if he was making Stark afraid. That hadn’t been his intention. He’d only wanted to find out the truth.

“No,” Stark spoke, finally, measured and cautious, “you got me there.”

The palladium core keeping Bucky up and running did nothing to abate the chill that set in at hearing that. He’d guessed that to be the case, of course, but it took hearing it from Stark to make him believe it. He was a robot learning the purpose for which he’d been programmed was a deception.

“You created me so I would protect the Captain.”

“Yeah, I did.”

Bucky found it increasingly hard to maintain eye contact with Stark. He cast his gaze about and ended up focusing on a point above Stark’s left shoulder.

“Why didn’t you tell me?” Bucky knew he sounded like a petulant child, but he couldn’t help it.

“Didn’t think it’d matter. It all amounts to the same thing anyway. Friends protect friends, and all,” Stark’s tone was too light, too breezy. It was a facade, (just like Bucky’s original mission).

“Why even make an android? You could’ve created a simple robot for the task,” Bucky wasn’t delving into the artificial intelligence aspect, into the possibility of emotions where they were entirely unnecessary.

“You’ve never done something just because you could?”

Bucky’s eyes snapped back onto Stark.

“You know I haven’t.”

“Huh,” Stark laughed uncomfortably, “yeah. I did know that,” he bent down to pick up the tool he dropped and turned to his worktable again. He resumed doing what he had been before Bucky had interrupted him-- sketching schematics for some new project, “It wasn’t totally that, though. There’s a kind of dedication that only comes with human feelings. Or, I don’t know. I suppose dogs have the same sort of loyalty. Now, that would be cool. RoboDog. I wonder if I could get away with giving it the level of intelligence of the average human. It could carry conversations and play fetch-- ”

“Get to the point, Stark,” Bucky wasn’t pouting. He really wasn’t. But he was getting a bit testy.

“Oh, right. Yeah. None of my other robots would ever willingly harm people. I give you emotions, and you’ll do what needs to get done to keep the Captain alive.”

What needs to be done… Bucky recalled the splatter of orange on city streets, of explosions and bullet holes. Stark expected him to be able to do the same for people. Bucky felt, with a sudden surety he hadn’t previously known he’d possessed, that he would. He’d kill for the Captain, even if it meant violating the laws every robot had implanted within them. He just didn’t know if it was his programming or his own personal experiences that motivated him to feel so sure. He was seized by a sudden, blinding panic, and took a half-step backwards. Stark didn’t notice his discomposure, his stylus unceasing on the worktable hologram.

Bucky clenched his hands into fists, his fingernails slotting into the half-moon crescents they’d cut only days before. The pain grounded him, kept his processors focusing on that rather than the strength of… whatever he was feeling. Bucky said a mumbled goodbye, then fled.

He couldn’t sit idly by in Stark’s workshop anymore. He had to find the Captain, and he had to protect him.


	4. Chapter 4

It was too easy to find the Captain, Bucky thought. After the defrosting, he’d settled in an older apartment complex in Brooklyn, where the walls were still built of brick rather than steel and glass. All Bucky had to do to find him was enter his alias into the search engines, triangulate the approximate location of his living space by noting frequencies and locations of paparazzi photos taken. From there, he just hacked into the tenant records of apartment buildings within the general area.

That’s how he found himself on the rooftop opposite Stephen Grant Rogers’ one-bed, one-bath living space, taking greater care than necessary not to be spotted. He knew, logically, that if any non-friendlies had found the Captain’s living space, they would have attacked already, but he also felt he wasn’t yet ready to confront the Captain, not so soon after his true purpose had been revealed to him and he’d had his subsequent emotional arrest.

Bucky tamped down on that desire-- the one to avoid confrontation. It was irrational and wouldn’t aid his mission. The sun had set hours ago, but the Captain’s lights were still on. His apartment was bathed in yellow, and Bucky knew that now was as good a time as any. He took a running leap, and landed on the fire escape opposite the ledge he’d been resting on. Bucky was heavier than the average humanoid, however, and gravity had worked a little too well on him. He was a few storeys lower than the Captain’s window. It was easy enough (too easy, actually) to scale the rusted old fire escape. It creaked and groaned under his weight, even as he tried to step lightly, lingering only milliseconds before he took another stride up.

He slid the Captain’s window open and slipped inside, his clothing hissing against the windowframe. He brushed rust and dust he’d accumulated in the effort off of his clothes, then looked up. The Captain was standing in front of him, shield in hand, clad only in plaid pajama pants. They gazed at each other for a long moment, twin assessing looks on their faces, the muffled sounds of a city falling asleep the only sign that life was going on outside of the Captain’s apartment.

The Captain lowered his shield, finally, dropping it haphazardly to rest against the leg of a sidetable.

“Bucky, right?” his sharp eyes had softened, somewhat. He looked more resigned than anything. Bucky followed suit, relaxing his posture and dropping his shoulders to appear less threatening. He wasn’t here as a threat, he reminded himself. He had to project his good intent.

“Yeah,” he shrugged apologetically. That was a common human gesture, right?

The Captain gave him a quick once over, but before Bucky could do the same, he’d moved. The Captain flopped onto a nearby couch and picked up a remote. He clicked a button, and the old-fashioned TV flickered to life.

“Seeing as you just invited yourself into my home via the window, I hope you don’t mind if I’m not inclined to offer you any refreshments right at the moment,” the Captain said, his tone ironic. Bucky could hear the smile on his face more than see it. That was another thing-- Bucky could have been a hostile intruder. The Captain didn’t know him from any random person he might have met on the street, and yet, within seconds of catching Bucky sneaking into his house, he had his back to him and his attention fully on a television. Bucky could have thrown his hands up in exasperation, if he were inclined to give into those kinds of emotions.

Instead, he climbed over the back of the couch and settled himself beside the Captain.

“Don’t mind at all,” he said, in reference to the Captain’s previous statement. The Captain turned towards him for a brief moment, flashing him an easy, surprised smile, before he seemed to remember himself, and what Bucky really was. Then a frown overtook the smile, and he turned back towards the TV.

Bucky followed suit. The Captain flicked through the channels for long while before finding something he seemed to deem satisfactory, and then he promptly fell asleep. Bucky marvelled at that alone, that the Captain could just fall asleep in the presence of a near-stranger. He was lost, suddenly. He’d planned on talking to the Captain, on perhaps confronting him about his unnecessary risks. He hadn’t expected the Captain to take another one of those risks before Bucky even got the chance to work up to such a discussion. What was Bucky supposed to do now?

He probably should have left, if he was still interested in endearing himself to the Captain. But that wasn’t his mission. Bucky made a split second decision to stay. He’d watch over the Captain. He went back to the window he’d come in from, and locked it shut. He went around the Captain’s cozy apartment, turning off lights in the faint hope that it would help the Captain sleep better, enabling him to make better choices with the adequate rest he might attain. For the same reason, he located a blanket and draped it over the Captain’s form, imposing and massive even in the softness of slumber.

Bucky searched for a computer and, upon finding one, settled into a rocking chair in the corner opposite the Captain’s couch. He  powered the computer up and started researching ways to make headstrong superhumans see the proverbial light and start looking after themselves better.

 

\- + -

 

The Captain awoke before the sun had breached the horizon, before it started to bleed into the sky and turn it all sorts of colors from the lower end of the spectrum-- reds and oranges and yellows. It was still a hazy gray when he stirred from his sleep, and Bucky hadn’t had time to complete his research. On a side note, he really needed to ask Stark for that internet upgrade. The laptop he was using ran out of juice often enough that he’d had to abandon his post by the Captain in favor of a spot in front of an outlet.

And that’s what proved his undoing. From his limited experience with humans, they (Stark) were loud when they woke up-- they yawned loudly, popped their bones loudly, and bitched about the smallest inconveniences loudly. The Captain, it seemed, was unlike Stark in that regard.

He only discovered the Captain had awoken when he heard the telltale sounds of a showerhead coming to life, the sputtering spray of water upon skin. Bucky looked up from the screen, and saw the couch the Captain had been sleeping on was empty, the blanket Bucky had lain upon him earlier that night wadded up into a ball and placed atop it.

Bucky could have cursed his inattention. He’d do better in the future. He had to, because the Captain surely would not look after himself. That he had not voiced any discomfort over Bucky remaining in his apartment overnight and had, instead, gone on to take a shower was another bad sign. He hadn’t even taken his shield with him, Bucky noted with ever-increasing annoyance. It was still resting by the end table. He got up from his position on the rocking chair in the corner and, to the now-familiar sounds of his nonessential systems booting up, he tidied up a tiny bit. He put the shield on top of the side table, and folded the blanket into a neat pile. His gaze was drawn towards the direction of the shower. He frowned at it, at the Captain within it. Stupid human with his stupid carelessness.

Bucky was about to indulge in some carelessness of his own, however. He’d do it quick, and he’d do it cautiously. He locked all the doors and windows, double-checking that the locks held, and then he slipped out of the apartment again, this time through the front door.

 

He came back a half hour later, paper bag in hand, to an open front door. Bucky’s knuckles went gray-- the skin there pulling taut against the metal just beneath the surface. He walked in, shutting the door with a tap of his toes behind him.

The Captain was sitting on a stool, perusing the paper. He looked up as Bucky entered, and the expression on his face was almost sheepish. Bucky glared at him.

“You’re a fucking idiot,” Bucky growled.

The Captain pouted, “I had to get the paper,” and then he waved the paper around to prove his point, as if that made him any less of an idiot.

Bucky gave up on the glare. It clearly wasn’t going to work. He busied himself with emptying the contents of the bag, carefully aligning croissants and danishes in precise parallel patterns. If he was a bit brutal with the poor pastries, no one had to know.

“I didn’t know rob-- you could eat,” the Captain said.

“I don’t.”

“Then why--?”

Bucky started rifling through the cabinets, looking for plates, “They’re for you,” upon finding the plates, he took one out and piled the pastries atop it. He handed it to the Captain, who was wearing such a confused look, it gave Bucky pause. He wondered if he’d made a misstep, “I thought… the serum gave you an advanced metabolism, didn’t it?”

The Captain nodded. He was still looking at Bucky with that confusion, like Bucky was a puzzle piece he couldn’t figure out where to place, and Bucky felt the irrational urge to fidget. He gave in, playing with the frayed sleeves of his hoodie. The Captain tracked to movement, not even removing his gaze as he plucked a cookie from the top of the pastry pile and dug in.

“I may be an idiot,” the Captain said, after he had licked the cookie crumbs from his fingers, “but you’re still weird.”

Bucky frowned at him, not seeing what the first statement had to do with the second. He said as much. The Captain smiled at that, the corners of his lips curling up in an attractive manner. Bucky’s frown deepened.

“Then again, maybe weird’s the wrong word for it,” the Captain mused, and promptly dug into the pastry pile.

Bucky wondered hopelessly why he couldn’t be tasked with looking over any other human. Surely the rest of them were easy to comprehend compared to the Captain.

 

\- + -

 

Bucky tagged along with the Captain on the mundane tasks he completed that day. It happened without either of them acknowledging it. The Captain just pronounced he was headed to the gym, and Bucky stated his desire to follow. All the Captain did in response was hand him a pile of gym clothes.

“You can borrow these,” he’d said, and after they’d both changed, he’d had to demonstrate how the drawstrings worked. He had rolled his eyes at Bucky’s attempted solution of holding the pants up with his hand, but there was a smile on his face, and his shoulders were shaking slightly, like he was trying not to laugh. He’d drawn close, dropping his duffle bag off on the way, and brushed Bucky’s hands aside.

“Guess they’re a little too big for you,” the Captain had said, as he knotted the drawstring into a bow.  The pants no long threatened to fall off Bucky’s hips. As the Captain withdrew his hands, they brushed against the exposed skin at Bucky’s waistband. Bucky watched with something akin to amusement as the Captain exhaled sharply and snapped his hands back to his person far quicker than was necessary. Bucky’s skin was cold, he knew that, but the Captain was acting like he’d been burned.

Bucky made no comment. He only quirked an eyebrow and jerked his head at the door-- _time to go?_ The Captain nodded, quick and sharp. _Yeah_ , he seemed to say, without words, _let’s forget that just happened._

 

At first, Bucky only watched the Captain work out. He tried not to be obvious about it, as Stark had expressed multiple times Bucky’s tendency to be ‘creepy’ without realizing it. Soon enough, however, Bucky came to understand that the Captain was undermatched in every way. He pushed the exercise machines to their maximum capabilities and barely broke a sweat. He pummeled punching bags off their chains and onto the ground. After a half hour of watching the Captain grow increasingly frustrated with the lack of resistence he was getting from _everything_ , Bucky volunteered himself.

“You can fight me, if you want.”

“I can?”

The Captain turned his bright, sharp eyes onto Bucky. He grinned, and Bucky found he didn’t desire at all to look away from it, even as he wrapped tape around his knuckles.

“Sure,” Bucky gave a calculated smirk, “I promise I’ll go easy on you.”

“Don’t hold back on my account. I can look after myself,” the Captain was still smiling, but there was something else in his voice. Something a little like a challenge. Bucky, knowing that the Captain ‘looking after’ himself was what had gotten them both there, was prepared to meet that challenge.

The Captain stepped onto a nearby mat and squared his shoulders. Bucky followed suit. They circled around the mat, their bare feet whispering along the plastic. The rest of the occupants of the gym seemed to disappear. The TVs playing reality shows in the corner faded away. The sounds of techno music pumping throughout the room was reduced to the bare bassline-- it coursed throughout Bucky’s circuits like blood through veins.

The Captain darted forward, and Bucky dodged. He righted himself, using the momentum to throw a curled fist at the Captain’s sternum. The Captain turned aside, and Bucky’s inertia carried him into a vulnerable position. Before the Captain could land a blow, however, he took a chance and dropped. He fell onto his palms and swept the Captain’s legs out from under him.

The Captain looked surprised when he hit the ground but, in the time it took Bucky to crawl over and straddle the Captain, the surprise had turned to a genuine smile. Bucky grinned back, and leaned over to pin the Captain’s arms to the ground, and finally get him to concede Bucky’s win. His move was intercepted. The Captain caught Bucky’s hands and made an aborted attempt to buck Bucky off his body. Bucky’s weight proved too much for the Captain to simply thrust off, however. He changed his mind, and flipped Bucky over onto his back, effectively switching their positions.

Bucky’s hands were pinned above his head and his body was pinned to the mat. Steve was panting heavily and his forehead shone slick with sweat. If Bucky had lungs, he knew he’d be panting too.

“Told you you didn’t have to go easy on me,” the Captain said, his face close enough to Bucky’s for his breath to stimulate the sensory receptors across Bucky’s cheekbones. Bucky smiled without even thinking about it.

“Who says I didn’t?”


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Steve gets hurt in battle and Bucky comes up with an idea to make his mission easier.

“Don’t go easy on these guys, Bucky,” the Captain had said.

“Why in hell would I?” Bucky had replied.

 

Bucky was allowed to go into the fray. He fought side by side with the Captain, watching his six and picking off the baddies that dared come for them. Him. The Captain was his mission, and he had no objection to the parameters. He’d gladly follow his programming, he decided. Even if it led him into trouble.

Trouble like the Serpent Society. The serpentine villains seemed to just pour out of the alleys and sidestreets. There were so many of them. But Bucky tried. He incapacitated where he could, and hadn’t yet had to kill any of the slithering beasts. The Captain would be proud, Bucky thought wryly, as he hit the scaled head of another one of the serpents with a resounding _clang_. His iron alloy interior wasn’t just for freaking out store scanners and metal detectors, it could also be used to (relatively) safely take baddies out.

Just as Bucky finished taking down Snake Guy #5 down, he heard a strangled yell. Forgetting himself, forgetting everything but the source of the yell, he turned around. He’d taken his eyes off the Captain for seconds-- 5.4 seconds according to his internal chronometer -- but that was too long. The Captain’s shoulders were sloping. He was standing, but only just. He had one hand on his side, and the hand was stained red with blood.

Bucky was beside him in an instant. Allowing himself to be used as a crutch, he began guiding the Captain to a nearby building with a set of steps. The Captain had to sit.

“How ya doin’, old man?” Bucky asked, voice nearly inaudible over the sounds of a battle raging on despite them-- despite the Captain’s injury.

“I’m just dandy. Really. Let me go,” but the Captain made no real effort of protest, even when Bucky shouldered more of his weight. That was a bad sign if there ever was one. Bucky ignored all the indicators within him telling him to take a systems diagnostic. He was fine-- the indicators were shooting off false results for no reason other than his own emotional distress. It was the Captain who was in danger.

He slumped against Bucky, his body searing hot against Bucky’s own chilled form. The Captain’s blood dampened Bucky’s t shirt.

“How’d you finish her off?” the Captain mumbled. Bucky frowned, wondering if the Captain had lost enough blood for delirium to set in.

“Finish who off?”

The Captain didn’t have time to answer. Or, if he did, Bucky didn’t have time to hear it. He was ripped from the Captain’s side in an instant, talons sinking into his arm like it was made of butter instead of metal. He watched in secondhand agony as the Captain crumpled onto the debris strewn street. He was uncaring as to his own fate, only thinking of what this delay might mean for the Captain.

He turned to face his attacker-- an initially unassuming woman until one looked closer and saw her sickly sallow skin and the slitted pupils bisecting yellow eyes. Bucky twisted out of her grasp, at the cost of half the skin on his left arm. She hissed at him, her forked tongue flickering out of her mouth. Bucky made a face and dodged deftly as she lunged for him a second time.

“You got a face only a mother could love, darlin’,” he gave an exaggerated shiver. It wasn’t his best quip, but it did the trick. Her eyes went wide, and her attacks erratic. She lunged over and over again, getting sloppy in her anger. Bucky set his shoulders even as he continued to evade her talons.

“You hurt my Captain,” Bucky hissed, perhaps subconsciously imitating the sounds coming out of the snake’s mouth, “so I’m gonna hurt you.”

 

To his credit, he doesn’t hurt her too bad. He kneed her in her chest, cutting off a particularly vehement curse coming out of her mouth, and then he dropped her with an elbow to the back. He didn’t even put all his weight behind it. If he had, he probably would have broken her spine. Instead, he left her with a bruised back and a rattling set of lungs. His shirt, damp with the Captain’s blood, clung to his torso, and he wanted to do more to her. But that wouldn’t have been right. He’d done enough already. The other Avengers would take care of her.

Bucky left her, and returned to the Captain.

 

“Captain,” he said, hand flitting over Steve’s prone form in a cursory yet careful examination of Steve’s injuries, “can you hear me?”

“Hey. M’name’s Steve. Call me it.”

Bucky’s mouth flattened into a tight line.

“If you get through this, I’ll call you anything you like. Where’s the nearest hospital?” he cursed Stark for the millionth time for not putting the Internet in his CPU. He could just look up the closest hospital, instead of having to rely on word of mouth. Steve mumbled something incoherent, and chased all thoughts of throttling Stark out of Bucky’s mind. Bucky looked around, wildly.

“Barton!” Bucky shouted, spotting the nearest Avenger, “Hospital?”

Hawkeye pointed with his bow, “Two blocks down, three to the right.”

“Thanks.”

“No problem. Say hi to Sara for me.”

Bucky nodded distractedly. He was looking around for a cab, a car he could hotwire, a bicycle, anything. Then he spotted it. And, oh, of course.

“Captain, do you think you could hold onto me?”

“Obviously,” the Captain replied, although the effect was lessened by the wheeze in his voice. Bucky had no choice but to take him on his word, though. He gathered the Captain in his arms and carried him bridal-style to his motorcycle. It was a thing of beauty-- hulking yet sleek, all leather and reinforced chrome. The Captain had let Bucky sit in the back on the way over. Bucky hoped he wouldn’t mind taking the backseat this time.

 

\- + -

 

“Your friend’s resilient, I’ll give him that much.”

Bucky’s eyes slid to his right. A nurse had joined him on his vigil. Once the doctors had assessed the Captain wasn’t in critical condition, Bucky had calmed down enough to contact the rest of the Avengers. They’d be over as soon as cleanup went underway, they said, with injuries of their own for the hospital to attend to. The Captain wasn’t critical, but he still had to have immediate surgery. Bucky was waiting on the ground outside the operating room.

“He’s stubborn,” Bucky allowed.

The nurse-- Veronica, as her nametag proclaimed. Not Sara. Bucky remembered abruptly that he had to ask around and see if a Sara was even on shift here. Veronica smiled. It looked pained.

“Are you gonna let me look at that arm now?”

Bucky’s eyes slid over to his left. The skin on his arm was in tatters. Torn apart, the smart fabric looked more like flesh-toned gauze than a self-repairing mesh. Bucky lifted his other arm and ripped off the tatters, baring the metal beneath. He didn’t miss the way Veronica froze, her shoulders tensed in fear. Or disgust. He didn’t know. Didn’t care to find out, either. The only thing he cared about was the Captain’s wellbeing.

“That’s a no, then,” Veronica squeaked. Bucky nodded. She unfolded her legs out from beneath her and stood up.

She walked away, clipboard in hand, and Bucky could have sworn he’d heard her mutter under breath, “Captain America and his creepy-ass Terminator pal. They don’t pay me enough for this shit.”

 

\- + -

 

The whole Avengers team stopped by-- to pay their condolences, to check up on the Captain, or, in Barton’s case, to get stitched up. The Black Widow, the first the arrive, was also the first to leave. She walked by Bucky into the Captain’s post-op room without a glance his way. On her way out, she nodded once, then left. Barton dropped by while she was in the room, then was escorted out with a duo of nurses who knew him by name. The Asgardian took one look at Bucky sitting outside the room, asked if the Captain was alright, and when Bucky replied in the affirmative, he only hesitated for a brief moment before thanking him and leaving.

Stark came, at last, with a tired-looking Bruce Banner in tow. Banner went into the room, and Stark stayed outside to speak with Bucky.

“You did good,” he said, without provocation or explanation. But he didn’t have his customary grin on his face. Without it, he could have been a good five or ten years older.

Bucky dropped his head onto his interlocked forearms. It would have been better if Stark had blown up at him, telling him outright that he’d failed, that it was only luck that the Serpent hadn’t fatally wounded the Captain, that Bucky should’ve been there, and wasn’t.

“I like the arm, by the way. I can make you a new sleeve, if you want, but it looks badass.”

“It doesn’t look human,” Bucky said, his voice muffled by his arms.

Stark inhaled, probably in preparation for some quip humans looking boring anyways, but Banner appeared, cutting him short. Stark huffed out a breath, relief evident in his tone as he spoke.

“Bruce! How’s Cap doing?”

Bucky looked up. Banner was adjusting his glasses. Tony was wearing his smile again, and all in the world was a little bit more right.

“Steve’s fine. He’s not happy they’re making him stay the night, but that’s a given.”

They started walking down the hall. Tony’s face was bright and carefree, where moments before he’d looked solemn and weighted. He gesticulated wildly as he launched directly into plans for some new project he was working on-- the names Helen Cho and Hank Pym kept cropping up. Bucky watched the soft smile on Banner’s face, the lines that seemed to disappear as the smile grew, and again wondered if Tony Stark knew how lucky he was. If he knew how many people cared.

The legs of Veronica’s purple scrubs appeared in front of him, obscuring his view of Stark and Banner.

“He’s asking for you.”

 

“Bucky.”

“Captain.”

“My memory’s a little fuzzy, so you gotta tell me if I dreamed this part, but I seem to remember you saying you’d call me anything if I got through this,” the Captain gestured down in the vague direction of his injury. Bucky winced. He pulled one of those shitty hospital chair right beside the Captain’s bed and sat in it.

“I was really hoping you wouldn’t hold me to that.”

That wasn’t true. Bucky hadn’t even thought about it. The words had slipped out of his mouth and that had been the last he thought of them. He’d been a bit preoccupied. The Captain was grinning widely, despite a busted lip and a bruised eye. He even had a cut across his left cheekbone. Bucky tried and failed not to feel responsible for even these smaller slights.

“So, ever since I woke up, I’ve been thinking about it. I _could_ make you call me Steve, but that’d be kind of boring. Why call me Steve when you could call me Captain Awesome?”

Bucky groaned, for the Captain’s sake, “That’s the worst.”

“No, no, no. There’s more. Sentinel of liberty.”

Bucky feigned gagging.

“Truth, justice, and the American way?”

“Please stop.”

“People Magazine’s Hottest Man in the World, seventy years running.”

Bucky paused his eye-rolling, “You’re shitting me.”

“Of course, idiot.”

And, just like that, Bucky recalled that they weren’t just riffing at each other in a gym or across the breakfast table. The Captain was injured, so badly that he’d had to be taken to a hospital.

“You’re the idiot, idiot,” Bucky grumbled, remembering why they were in a fucking hospital in the first place. It was his fault, he knew that much, but-- he couldn’t stop himself from considering a change of circumstance-- if the Captain hadn’t been so reckless, if he’d stayed by Bucky’s side instead of running off to face superpowered foes…

“Hey,” the Captain’s soft utterance brought Bucky back to the present. He looked concerned, his brows knitted together and his lips pursed.

“Hey.”

“You okay?”

“Really? The one is the hospital bed’s asking _me_ if _I’m_ okay?”

The Captain quirked an eyebrow at that. Unbidden, Bucky’s thoughts went back to where they were before he’d been interrupted. An idea struck him.

“I’ll call you by your name if you promise to do something for me.”

“Name it.”

Bucky sighed. Heavily. He had no need to do so-- it was purely for show, to show the Captain how utterly exhausting he was. Anyone else would ask questions first, be the slightest bit skeptical. Not the Captain.

“Don’t be so dumb.”

The Captain laughed, short and surprised, but still enough to make Bucky’s processors thrum. His eyes darted to the Captain’s side, half expecting to see crimson red blood bloom across the sheets from the strain of laughter. He knew how fragile humans were.

“Shut up,” he hissed, urgently. The Captain gamely indulged him, miming zipping his mouth shut. Bucky looked dow, at his hands, metal and flesh, intertwined on the stark white sheets of Captain’s hospital bed, “I’m serious. It’d make my job a whole lot easier.”

“Your job?” the Captain sounded confused.

“My mission,” Bucky clarified. He still couldn’t find it in him to raise his head and face those piercing blue eyes.

“Oh, right. I keep forgetting…” the Captain trailed off. Bucky looked up to find the Captain’s gaze trained on his left arm. Bucky looked at it too. He tried to see it through the Captain’s eyes. _Unnatural, dangerous, inhuman_. All these descriptors and more came to his mind.

Bucky shifted his chair away from the Captain’s well-lit bed, into the shadowy fringes of the hospital room. It scraped along the tiles of the floor, the sounds like screeches in the silence. The Captain looked up at Bucky’s face, his eyes wide.

“Still breathing, Steve?” Bucky tried for levity.

The Captain -- _Steve_ \-- blinked. A spell was broken, and Bucky felt as if his systems had only just resumed functioning (although logically he knew they’d been working fine from the start).

“Yeah, yeah. You’re not rid of me yet.”

Bucky’s brow furrowed. His hands curled around the armrests of his chair. “Don’t even fucking joke--”

“Relax!” Steve lifted up his hands placatingly, amusement written clear as day across his face, “I won’t be such an idiot.”

“You can’t just _say_ that,” Bucky rolled his eyes. Exasperation, even though he knew he was being tiring himself. At least, he told himself, his whinging had a purpose, “You have to mean it.”

Steve looked thoughtful. He curled all of the fingers on one of his hands aside from the smallest digit. He extended it to Bucky.

“I pinkie promise you I won’t be a dumbass. How’s that, RoboCop?”

As Steve had proffered the little finger on his right hand, Bucky had no choice but to meet it with metal. He twisted his finger around Steve’s, for one stifling moment. Then he withdrew. He didn’t want any of the chill from the metal to sink into Steve, not even in his smallest finger.

The atmosphere in the room shifted. The chromatic scale seemed to slide from the sterile yet sickly hospital yellow-green to a lighter, warmer pink and red. Maybe it was Steve’s cheeks that precipitated the shift. In the wake of their pinkie promise, Steve had flushed lightly. Bucky observed the color change, and felt something wondrous in it. He didn’t know if his synthetic skin was capable of such a thing.

The door to the hospital room clicked open. A harassed looking nurse slipped in.

Where Veronica had been happy to step lightly around Bucky, this one gruffly barked, “Alright, get out. He needs his rest.”

Bucky frowned and raised out of his chair a few inches, ready to fight for his right to be there if need be. A look from Steve held him back. _I'll be fine_ , the look seemed to say. _Stop worrying_. Bucky nodded, after a beat. He brushed past the nurse on his way out of the room. He gave her a cursory once-over. She didn’t look to be a threat, an agent of evil in disguise, but it was only upon seeing her nametag that Bucky relaxed somewhat. Steve would probably be safe in the hands of Barton’s friend Sara. Probably.

Bucky took the motorcycle back to Steve’s apartment, flushed cheeks and the curiously intriguing look of metal against flesh on his mind the whole ride.


End file.
